


You Brought Out The Best In Me

by Bluejay141519



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fill, Willy is going through some things dont judge him, something angsty, something soft, something whole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-12 20:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19581925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejay141519/pseuds/Bluejay141519
Summary: Mitch is the sun and Willy's been in the shadows since the day Mitch was drafted. That doesn't mean he loves Mitch any less.





	You Brought Out The Best In Me

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [PuckingRare2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> mitch is the sun and willy's been in the shadows since the day mitch was drafted. doesn't mean he loves mitch any less. some angst is great but a happy ending please
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Willy always used to describe himself as bright. Back when they were in America, while his dad was still on the Caps and he still got excited when he saw Nicke’s car in the pick up line, they used to have these stupid little activities to do.

_ ‘Use three adjectives to describe yourself _ ’, they’d say, in big size sixteen font with spaces set out for him. He’d always written three words: loud, shy, and bright.

Sort of an oxymoron, but they were all his true. (Might’ve also been some of the only ones he knew, but who cares.)

He was shy, quiet until he was comfortable, and then he was the light of the room, laughing and joking and smiling. He terrorized Nicke once he decided he liked him, but he also knew he could be quiet with him. Sometimes they’d just sit next to each other on the couch, reading books while his siblings were running around. He never told him how much he loved doing that, and by the time he realized how important it was to him - to have a person he could just be still with - he was back in Sweden? and it was time to look at his own hockey.

A lot changed for him, after that. Hockey got harder, tougher in a way it hasn’t been before. His dad got tougher too, and he learned how to hate hockey because of it.

Took him ten years before he realized why that happened.

He didn’t hate hockey - he’s loved hockey since before he even knew it’s name - he just hated what it meant. When he was that young, hockey meant the thing his dad yelled at him about. Hockey was the thing he wasn’t good enough at. Hockey was the thing he consistently disappointed people with.

Hockey was the thing that told him it wasn’t okay to like boys.

Hockey represented a lot of things he didn’t like - it even took away his idol when his dad left the NHL. It took away his friends and his home and it gave him insecurity and confidence issues and the ability to surprise a huge part of who he was.

Then he hit juniors, and turns out there’s a lot more that goes on there than his dad would’ve had him know. It also turns out that there’s a lot more people like him, hiding in plain sight. It was so surprising to him, although he supposed it shouldn’t be. Of course there would be other hockey players like them, statistically it’s impossible that there weren’t.

It surprised him so much, he nearly blew it with his parents. He came home one day, blabbering about this one boy on his team who was just like him. He left out the fact that he got to kiss him, but his mom might’ve gotten the hint.

His dad never did. His sisters knew, because of course they did. He never even had to tell them.

It gave him hope though, that there was a new generation of hockey player coming into the league. Whole draft classes that were quickly pushing out the old way of thinking. Whole teams that were accepting and even supportive of same sex relationships.

They might’ve been few and far between, but the fact that they were  _ there  _ \- it made Willy so happy. It made him love hockey again, let him be himself while he was at it. He was the kid again, working hard and playing well and smiling and laughing. He met more people like that, more who were the same but different and *then*-

-then Willy met David. If he had to chose specific moments in his life that have changed him, leaving the US would be one, kissing his first boy would he two, and meeting Pasta would be three.

Because David is just like him, but not like him, and David makes him feel warm in ways he never knew he could.

David is both the first boy he dates, and the first boy who breaks his heart.

They were never going to be anything serious, he knew that. Pasta calls it off, because he’s going to the NHL, and they both admit to knowing how it wouldn’t work. If things were different- If they weren’t in the most homophobic professional sport, if they weren’t both each other’s firsts, if they weren’t about to play for two completely separate teams- maybe they could’ve tried.

Their thing was short but sweet and it lit something inside Willy. He doesn’t know if he loved Pasta, but he knows he could’ve. After pasta, he knows that he wants that. He wants what they had, but he wants more. He wants to play hockey like they did, he wants to go on dates like they did, he wants to hold someone and he wants to be held. He wants to love someone, wants to be loved like he did.

David goes to the NHL, to Boston, to the bruins, and by the time Willys got his head up again he’s there too.

Only he’s going to Toronto. To the maple leafs. It’s not the most exhilarating experience he’s ever had, no, that was finding out that Pasta liked him back, that was finding out he could play hockey and be gay.

They call his name, and when he puts on the blue jersey, all he can think is that it’s a good thing they broke up before this happened. It’s a good thing, because they’re still friends, and if they were dragged apart by the rivalry then they might not be.

He plays for the Marlies, he makes his debut and gets a point, and he calls Pasta to talk about everything and anything until it doesn’t hurt so bad.

Willy gets a good three months of peace. Three months of him being okay, but wanting.

Three months, and then it’s the draft.

And then the Maple Leafs take Mitch Marner in the first.

And then Willy makes the mistake of *watching* them announce his name, and watching as he puts on the jersey and watching as he smiles, and oh.

_ Shit _ .

—————

Willy always used to describe himself as bright, but he didn’t have shit on Mitchell Marner.

The kid was had more lumen than every light in the stadium combined. He was perpetually happy, and if there was ever a moment that he  _ wasn’t  _ happy, well then at least they knew something was seriously wrong. Something more wrong than a loss, or a scoring drought, because Mitch didn’t let those things touch his happiness, not like everyone else.

Mitch was the sun, and Willys been cast in the shadows since the day he was drafted.

It doesn’t mean he loved Mitch any less.

It’s just that sometimes he feels like he’s so deep in those shadows that people don’t see him at all. Sometimes it feels like he can’t even see his hands, like he couldn’t get out of them even if he tried. Sometimes it feels more like he can’t see Mitch’s light, and he’s stuck in the darkness alone.

“You need to stop thinking so hard.” 

Willy blinks his eyes open, looking up at the ceiling fan that’s lazily spinning in circles above his head. He turns his head to the side to look at the bundle of hockey player attached to his hip.

“Sorry did it wake you?” He snips back, turning his attention back to the ceiling fan. 

Mitch raises his head, hair spiked up from the pillow and now drying it after his shower. He blinks and squints at Willy, looking like he’s trying very hard to be intimidating. 

He misses that goal by about a mile, and lands on looking horribly cute instead, so Willy kisses him to remind himself that he can. Mitch makes a pleases noise, but pulls away after a few seconds to lay his head on Willy’s shoulder and snuggle closer. 

Willys sighs, shifts a bit so he can wrap his arm around Mitch’s shoulders. Mitchy nuzzles at his neck, and Willy closes his eyes again, warm and safe in the moment, but somehow still not at ease.

And Mitch will always -  _ always  _ \- pick up on it. 

“Will.” He mumbles, probably still only a few minutes away from sleep. 

“I’m fine, Mitchy.” He wishes his voice wasn’t so raspy, wishes the weakness of the words didn’t betray the uncertainty in his heart.

“You’re not. You’re doing it again.” Mitch says, all very matter of factly like he knows he’s right.

He  _ is _ , but Willy still likes to think he can keep this to himself.

Mitch actually sits up, and Willy is left with a cold spot and shuddering breathes. It feels to much like the first time this happened, the first time after they got together and Willy thought he was drowning, all alone in the dark with no one to see him.

Mitch has always seen him though. He saw him with a crush the size of jupiter, saw him trying to distance himself, saw him struggling with the decision to stay with a team he loved or separate himself from the person he loved as well, if only to get it to hurt less.

He saw him before they were together, and he sees him now, in all his doubt and all his guilt.

“ _ Willy _ .”

“Mitchy.” He sighs. “I’m-”

“If you say you’re fine, I might actually get angry at you.” Marns warns. When Willy looks over at him, he’s got his serious face on, the one thats mixed with concern and worry and a devotion so intense it almost makes him flinch. “Don’t lie to me.”

Willy scrubs at his face with his hands. He wants to go back to five minutes ago and tell his brain to shut up and go back to sleep, because lying in bed with his boyfriend for two hours is a much better option than having a real conversation about Willy not being able to be happy.

“It’s just- it’s been worse. Lately.”

Mitch is quiet for a moment. “Is it the performance thing, or is the the...me thing.”

And this is the reason why he hates his brain sometimes. Not because it makes him feel guilty for being with Mitch (He could be with someone else, someone  _ better _ ) but because it makes Mitch feel guilty for being who he is.

Willy loves Mitch with everything he has, every cell and every fiber of his being is devoted to loving Mitch. He loves him exactly the way he is, the bright, blinding happiness and optimism, the complete disregard for norms and personal boundaries, the way he  _ cares  _ about everyone and everything. 

He never wants that to change.

“It’s the ‘my brain can’t figure out who I’m supposed to be when I’m with you, because I’m so god damn in love you Mitchell Marner that I forget how to be anything else’ thing.” 

He didn’t mean to say it like that - it’s not really what he feels, not all of it, but it’s most of it. 

It’s that Mitch was the extreme version of Willy, that Mitch is what Willy wanted to be, what he thought he’d be. Willy is not like Mitch, who can love anyone and anything, who can see beyond hockey to be loyal to himself. Willy has been struggling to find the seven year old little boy who could be happy with himself while playing hockey. It’s been years since he had it, but he wants that back.

Mitch - Mitch who kissed him at the end of the year party their rookie year, Mitch who said “I love you” first and who smiles the brightest when he’s talking about Willy - tells him that he never really lost that. Mitch tells him, all the time, that he wouldn’t change what Willy is, but Willy wants to change. 

He wants to be better for Mitch. He wants him to know that he doesn’t mind standing in the shadows, as long as he’ll always be able to see the light. He wants to stop feeling like he’s nothing. 

He knows that Mitch could have someone else. For a while he thought he had someone else - thought he had Auston. Which was ironic, because Mitch apparently also thought that Willy had Auston, and Auston was busy trying not to be blatantly crushing on Freddie, so it was a very interesting few months filled with excessive amounts of miscommunication. 

Albeit it ended when Mitch tugged him into the bathroom hall of Zachs house to tell him about how Auston has a huge crush and that since Willy and Auston clearly aren’t dating he can do  _ ‘this’  _ and then they were kissing, and Willys heart exploded and he’s been picking up the pieces ever since.

The Auston and Freddie saga continued, but he had Mitch, and it didn’t hurt so bad.

Most of the time.

“Do you want me to call Auston? I’m gonna call Auston. And if he doesn’t work, I’ll call Zach, and if he doesn’t work I will get Kappy over here to beat your ass into talking.”

“Mitchy.” Willy groans, catching Marns wrist before he can jump out of bed for his phone.

Mitch stays, but only barely.

“I want to help you Willy, but you never talk to me about this. They normally pry it out of you and then you feel better, and then-”

“Hey.” He tugs Mitch again, and this time the smaller forward comes closer. Willy waits until he lays down again before looking him in the eye and speaking. “You always make me feel better Marns. It’s just- when you’re right there, it’s hard to get the right words out. Like when you try to talk to your dad.”

Mitch’s face does something complicated, but he nods. “That makes sense I guess. I just don’t like the idea of you not being able to talk to me. Especially about us.”

“I know babe.” He tugs Mitch closer, suddenly needing the closeness. “I’m sorry. I hate that I can’t even put it in words, but it’s like- I just-”

He sighs in frustration. Mitch tucks his face into his neck and rubs his thumb over the skin of Willys arm.

“Can you- can you say it? Again?” Willy asks, voice wavering and throat tight. 

He feels Mitch smile against his neck before he gets a soft kiss there.

“I love you, William Andrew Micheal Junior Nylander Altelius.” He says, the little shit that he is. “And I have loved you for longer than you knew, and will love you more than you’ll ever understand. I want to be with you, and I want you to be with me, and there’s no one else I want instead.”

Willy lets it sink in, and something in him settles just enough. The fear of being left in the dark quiets, just a little bit, just enough, just so he can feel the love he has for Mitch and know it’s the same love he gets in return. 

“Better?” Mitch asks. The urge to start sobbing has subsided enough that he can nod, and breath. He probably will talk to Auston about it, just because Auston knows Mitch and he knows Willy so he’s become the couples counselor for them. 

“Better.” He mumbles. It always is, with Mitch there to remind him. 

He might not be the brightest person in the room, but he’s okay with that. He doesn’t need to be, not anymore. And the days that he feels like he’s drowning, losing his way in the background, Mitch is always there, finding him and guiding him back to the light.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I had two other rarepairs to do and neither of them got finished in time which bummed me out but I really enjoyed writing this prompt!


End file.
